Roman Kolkowicz - The Soviet Military And The Communist Party

THE SOVIET MILITARY AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY

A Westview Encore Edition

By Roman Kolkowicz

First published 1985 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2019 by Routledge
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Copyright 1985 by Roman Kolkowicz

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-14410

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-29601-8 (hbk)

In 1967, when this volume was first published, Western perceptions of the Soviet military establishment were locked into a totalitarian model rising out of the Cold War era. The Soviet military was assumed to be powerful and well-equipped, but politically impotent and without any institutional identity. In other words, the marshals and generals were considered to be mere extensions of the Politburo and Party leaders, with no political or institutional voice of their own. This Western orthodoxy was rarely, if ever, challenged until the publication of The Soviet Military and the Communist Party. This volume, written over a period of several years at the RAND Corporation, and representing an analysis of vast amounts of Soviet and Western sources, concluded that this orthodox Western perception of the Soviet military and Soviet Party-military relations demanded serious reexamination.

In the book I suggested that the relations between the party and the military, far from being static and permanently fixed in a totalitarian mold, are dynamic and changing. I also indicated that there are several factors influencing the dynamics of that relationship, and thus the respective roles of the protagonists. These factors are: (1) changes in the Party's political arrangements following Stalin's deathfrom a dictatorship to a collective leadership; (2) the increased importance of the Soviet military as the key instrument in the maintenance of bloc cohesion and Soviet influence within the eroding alliance system; (3) the role of the military in fostering Soviet expansion into the Third World; and (4) the pivotal position of the Soviet military in the East-West strategic balance. Each of these developments increased the reliance of the Party on the military and thus endowed the military with influence and institutional autonomy within the Soviet system.

While the Party leaders' reliance on and need of the military increased in the post-Stalinist period, so did their concern with a military that was moving from a submissive, fully dependent position under Stalin, to a more assertive relationship under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. This profound concern was expressed by Khrushchev, who stated, "Who in our country is in a position to intimidate the leadership? It is the military... the military is prone to temptations; it is prone to indulge in irresponsible daydreaming and bragging. Given a chance, some elements within the military might try to force a militarist policy on the government. Therefore, the government Nonetheless, in the final analysis, the evolving party-military relationship is not only one of conflict, but also one of cooperation. The relationship consists of an ongoing institutional dialogue between the party and the militarya dialogue between partners in a common enterprise, not one between enemies. And as I emphasized in the book, the military has shown itself over the decades to be a most loyal, reliable, and conservative institution under the Party's leadership.

The book quickly polarized its readers in 1967a polarization that in itself was significant and needs to be briefly examined. Some of the most seasoned and serious scholars and analysts of Soviet military affairs and of civil-military relations strongly endorsed my findings and conclusionsthese included John Erickson, Malcolm Mackintosh, Thomas Wolfe, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Those who most vigorously challenged my conclusions included three dissimilar groups of analysts, who did indeed make strange bedfellows. They included (1) analysts in the Soviet Union who predictably launched a coordinated attack on the book accusing me of a variety of transgressions; (2) American "hardliners" in Washington bureaucracies and their adjuncts in certain think tanks; and (3) certain Western neo-Marxist scholars.

In each instance, the book provoked a powerful reaction, having threatened a fundamental and strongly held myth. For the Soviets, who necessarily adhere to a myth of the Soviet Union as the Benign Monolitha harmonious, organic society free of institutional or bureaucratic/political conflicts, marching serenely under the Leninist banner toward a preordained futuremy description of stresses and conflicts in Party-military relations was seen as a capitalist provocation. By the same token, many Western hardliners adhere to a myth of the Soviet Union as the Malign Monolitha fully integrated, unified, and dangerous system whose leaders and institutions are singleminded in their design to threaten and ultimately to dominate the West and the world. Thus, evidence of disagreements and conflict within a Communist system (and particularly within the Soviet Union) tends to confuse and blur the preferred image of the enemy and thus to complicate their bureaucratic and political calculus and budgetary claims. Finally, many Western neo-Marxist scholars adhere to their own myth of a harmonious, organic relationship between socialist workers and soldiers united in a noble and purposeful mission of revolution and liberation. My observations of disharmony within the ranksnot to mention the role of the Soviet military in Third World expansionprovoked outbursts of righteous wrath among them.

I am pleased to note here that the two decades since the book was originally published have done nothing to weaken my basic interpretations and conclusions. Indeed, if my interpretations and conclusions were initially considered a heresy in the study of Communist systems, they have since come to be accepted as somewhat of an orthodoxy. This is reflected in the remarks of Henry Kissinger, who observed that "the irony of communist systems is that they contain the seeds of Bonapartism. For the sole organizations outside the Communist Party with autonomous command structures are the armed forces and the paramilitary units of the KGB." He added that the growth of Soviet military power "is built into the system" and concluded that "since no one can achieve eminence, much less the top spot, without military [support]" a situation is created where "the armed forces emerged as the balance wheel in the struggles among the hierarchs of the Party."

I am grateful to Barbara Ellington and to Westview Press for giving me this opportunity to republish the book, thus making it available once again to students and scholars. Westview will also be publishing a companion volume to this book, entitled Communism, Militarism, Imperialism: Soviet Military Politics After Stalin, that will enable me to bring the analysis of Soviet Party-military relations up to date and to take into account the analytical, methodological, and interpretative developments in the field since the publication of the first book some two decades ago.